


Beginnings and Endings and Very Old Things

by TaraFarrago



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Sherlock (TV), wholock - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, BBC Sherlock - Freeform, Canon Crossover, Chameleon Arch, Community: sherlockbbc, Community: sherlockbbc_fic, Crossover, Friendship/Love, Gen, Headcanon, M/M, One Shot, Post Reichenbach, Reichenbach Feels, fandom: sherlock holmes, slashy if you want it to be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-18
Updated: 2012-08-18
Packaged: 2017-11-12 09:05:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/489140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaraFarrago/pseuds/TaraFarrago
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Sherlock was playing with it again - the pocket watch."  A year and a half later, Sherlock has returned - but he isn't exactly as John remembered him.</p><p>WHOLOCK.  This started as a harmless piece of fluff and turned into a vehicle for my post-reichenbach feels - and then became my new headcanon. [Also includes a pretty fun explanation of how Sherlock survived the fall that I'm fairly proud of. ;) ]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beginnings and Endings and Very Old Things

 

_The Doctor knelt to face the trembling, traumatized figure crouched on the deck of the TARDIS. “You remember being human, don’t you?  You remember life as Dr. Yana,” said the Doctor._

_Understanding the Doctor’s intention, the Master laughed lightly, and his slight, wiry shoulders slumped in defeat. “I remember.  His life was miserable. So pathetically small and insignificant.”_

_“It was a simple life,” the Doctor told him, “but not an insignificant one. After all, your innovations helped the last of humanity escape that world to pursue its dreams – true, as it turned out there was no Utopia, only more of the end of the universe, but you couldn’t have known that – you were, well, Yana was trying to help them.  Don’t you see?” the Doctor smiled kindly at him. “In that one lifetime, you got to experience everything the humans say make life worth living. You did good works… You had friends…”_

_“One friend,” said the Master petulantly, bitterness creeping into his expression._

_“You only need one,” the Doctor replied, casting a significant glance to his companion, who stood observing nearby.  “I want you to listen to me now,” he said gently to the Master.  “When you were Yana, the drums, they were still there.  I’m sorry, they’ll always be there, there’s nothing I can do about that.  But, as Yana, they were manageable, weren’t they?”  The Master looked up at him now, and the Doctor could see something new in his eyes past the desperation, disappointment, and madness: a faint trace of hope. “The signal interacts differently with the human neocortex. It’s there, but it doesn’t hurt. Am I right?”_

_“Y- yes,” the Master said._

_The Doctor nodded, and smiled a smile that his companion knew meant he was about to put into action a plan of particular brilliance.  And then he said, “I can give you that again.”_

 

Sherlock was playing with it again – the pocket watch.

It was just an ordinary old pocket watch, as far as John could tell.  But it was new.  Or rather, it was very old and John simply could not recall having ever seen it before Sherlock’s… before the incident.

Even now, a year and a half after Bart’s and two months after Sherlock’s thoroughly unexpected return from the dead, John struggled with the memories both of Sherlock’s suicide – ‘suicide’ – and of the weeks and months that had followed it.  Not easy months, those, but gradually his sister and Sarah and Mrs. Hudson had drawn him from his cocoon of mourning to rejoin the world at large.  His social circle now was far wider than it had ever been in Sherlock’s company.  He worked part time at Sarah’s surgery, volunteered at a veteran’s clinic, lunched twice a month with Harry, joined a local rugby team, even got a pint with Greg on occasion.  He couldn’t honestly say it made him _happy_ , but Harry was right in that it was certainly better than the alternative.

And then one night he’d come home from the laundry and found Sherlock sitting at their desk as if the past fifteen months hadn’t happened at all.  He’d been traveling the world hunting Moriarty’s criminal network, he explained, and now he’d returned to take down Moriarty’s most dangerous ally, right here back in London.  And he needed a base of operations and 221B seemed like it would be the last place anyone would look for him, so that was that.

Naturally, John had hit him, and hugged him, and hit him again, and then had not spoken to him for the next two days.

He’d put his social life on hold for a while, as well.  After months of countless prayers, there was a tiny part of John that worried about what would happen if he let Sherlock out of his sight again. 

But a week was as long as that had lasted.  As wonderful as it was to have Sherlock alive again – as life-changingly fantastic as it was, seven days in close quarters was enough to drive them both up the wall.  Sherlock had all but kicked him out the door and back into his regular routine, and by then John had been more than happy to oblige.

It was during that week that John had first observed Sherlock playing with the pocket watch.  And the _playing_ with it was doubly odd, since as far as John could remember, Sherlock didn’t _play_ with anything aside from his violin.  But whenever Sherlock seemed to be thinking (which was often) he’d pull out the watch and turn it over in his hands absent-mindedly, or sometimes just reach into his pocket to feel that it was there.  The strangest part about it, John realized after the first month or so, was that he never used it to check the time.  Never tried to open it.  Never even really looked at it at all. Just twiddled it about in his fingers.

And that wasn’t the only new behavior.  For the first time, Sherlock seemed to be intensely interested in John’s life outside of the flat.  He asked him all sorts of questions about the past year of his life – new people he’d met, new hobbies he’d acquired, what he talked about with Lestrade, et cetera, et cetera. When he was not talking to John, he could most often be found sitting by the front window, peering from behind the curtain at the street below, as though watching for someone or something.  He borrowed John’s laptop constantly – this was not strictly a new behavior, but now he did it to such an extent that John sometimes wondered whether Sherlock was spying on him.  After a time, Sherlock began sneaking out of the flat and disappearing for hours on end – _literally_ disappearing.  John had tried to follow him once and only gotten as far as Mrs. Hudson’s bins before losing his trail.

The worst was that once John did resume his social life, every time he returned to Baker Street he was met with an interrogation. “Where did you go? What did you see? Did you mention me? Did you meet anyone new? Did you notice anything odd?” 

Sherlock had insisted on his first night back that his return from the dead was a secret of paramount importance.  Only John and Mycroft and Mrs. Hudson were aware of it (and John had lobbied hard to have Mrs. Hudson included on that list – how Sherlock expected to be able to live in the same building with her without her noticing was beyond him) and all were sworn to the strictest secrecy. But apparently, from the way Sherlock treated him, it was a secret John could not be entirely trusted to keep.

In fairness, John had to admit that keeping such a secret was a rather tall order – especially since John, too, had changed in the wake of Sherlock’s return.  He was, for the first time in more than a year, happy.  Or at least not awash in depression.  And while John’s social circle was not terribly wide, the people he did see regularly all saw fit to comment on the change.  John found himself constantly having to shrug it off or explain it away.  “Finally moving on with my life,” he would tell them.  “No sense wallowing forever.”

And there were also the new frustrations (or were they merely _re_ newed?) that came with sharing close quarters with a man defined by paranoia and neuroses; John’s frequent agitation also didn’t go unnoticed by his friends and acquaintances.  Life of course would have been infinitely simpler if John could have confronted Sherlock about his behaviors. But with the tension of Sherlock’s confinement and the burden of the secret of his return between them, John was reluctant to add any additional strain to their relationship. That little part of John that had been afraid to let him out of his sight in the beginning, the part of him that needed Sherlock unashamedly, was afraid now of driving him away.  His absence for more than a year had been devastating; the thought that he might leave again was unbearable.  So John silently accepted the injustices, the inconveniences, and the invasions of his privacy, reminding himself of those long fifteen months whenever Sherlock irked him, and generally bottled up his frequently conflicting emotions about it all.

Thankfully, John wasn’t entirely without an avenue for therapeutic release.  He did have one person that he could speak with candidly, if in roundabout ways.

Roger was one of only a few new friends John had made in the aftermath of St. Bart’s.  They had met coincidentally in a pub after a shift at the surgery, and struck up an easy conversation.  Since Roger had never known Sherlock and John had seen fit not to mention him (John had, as a general rule, avoided talking about Sherlock in the same way one avoids salting an open wound), his conversations during those first months with Roger had been the only ones he could have that were unburdened by Sherlock’s absence.  And now that Sherlock was back, Roger became John’s outlet to vent his frustrations about his “new flatmate.”  He had explained early on that he’d taken on a lodger to help pay the bills, but always talked about him in a context as if John couldn’t decide whether the situation was working out.  (Given all the rudeness he had to endure at Sherlock’s hand, it was a tiny bit empowering to pretend that he might kick him to the curb on a whim.) 

Talking with Roger was so easy, and so liberating, that John had to privately admit to himself that he was sometimes _too_ honest in their conversations. Far more honest than Sherlock would have been comfortable with, but then again Sherlock wasn’t comfortable with anything these days – he even took pains to generate as little garbage as possible so the bins wouldn’t get suspiciously full. And truthfully, John couldn’t help opening up to Roger. He felt an inexplicable camaraderie with the man.  John always looked forward to their planned meetings and was likewise always pleasantly surprised when they bumped into each other unexpectedly, which happened quite often.  After each meeting, John would leave feeling lighter, possessed of some inner _je ne sais quoi_ – he felt more _himself_ , somehow.

One afternoon over what had become their customary fish and chips with pilsner at the Red Lion pub, John had started in again about his moody flatmate and his intrusions into John’s personal life. In response, Roger finally inquired whether this flatmate was, “ _more_ than a flatmate,” explaining, “Because if it were just some bloke, I’d have thought you would have kicked him to the street a long time ago.”

After he’d finished choking on his beer, John explained for the first time in a long time, “No. No, we’re not – it’s not like that.”

“Kick him out then,” Roger encouraged. “If you’re really that hard up for cash, I could come take his place. I’ve been thinking of relocating closer to your area, anyway.”

The part of John that fantasized about telling Sherlock off once and for all didn’t discount this offer out of hand – in another world, John suspected he and Roger would get on fine as flatmates. But of course John could never – _would_ never really entertain the notion.  So he brushed it away, saying simply, “Me and this guy, we have some history.”

“History?” Roger inquired.

“We used to know each other pretty well,” John went on. “He kind of inadvertently helped me through a rough patch when I came back from duty.  I suppose I owe him.”

After a few more beers and commiseration, mostly about people who wreck havoc with their friends’ lives, John returned home to face the beginning of yet another unexpected twist in his life. Climbing the steps in 221B, he found Sherlock standing at the window, pocket watch once again in hand.  “Who did you see?” Sherlock asked him, peering down at the street.

 “‘Hullo, John, welcome home, how was your day?’” said John, greeting himself as he wished Sherlock would do on occasion. “‘Not bad, how was yours?’ ‘Oh, you know, I stayed around the flat and talked to my skull and mucked about in the kitchen with a grotesque new experiment I’m working on. The usual.’”

Sherlock turned on him, irritation evident in his narrow-eyed glare. “Who did you see?” he asked again.

“Roger.  We grabbed a pint.”

“Roger.” Sherlock abandoned the window in favor of the sofa, and slipped the pocket watch into his dressing gown.  “You’ve been seeing an awful lot of him,” he commented suspiciously.

“Yes. It’s called having a social life,” John retorted lightly, hoping to segue the conversation from defensive sparring into friendlier banter. “You might think about trying it sometime, if you’re ever able to see people again, other than me and Mrs. Hudson and Mycroft.”

Sherlock spat, “You know very well why I’m not able to do that.”               

“Right, of course.  Pretending to be dead and all that, hiding from Moriarty’s henchmen.”

“Not hiding from,” Sherlock insisted.  “Hunting.”

“Right, yes.  Hunting them, I forgot.”  John made himself comfortable in his chair with a contented sigh.

“Did you mention me?” Sherlock asked.

“No,” John told him.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, of course I’m sure.  Sherlock,” John exclaimed, “it’s been two months.  I haven’t told anyone about you yet, and I’m not going to.”

Sherlock looked away, frowning, and his hand moved to his dressing gown pocket.

Finally, John couldn’t resist it anymore.  Maybe he was emboldened by his meeting with Roger, or maybe it was just two months worth of pent up curiosity and irritation finally bubbling to the surface, but John blurted out, demanding, “And what exactly is with you and that damned pocket watch?”

Sherlock’s eyes snapped back to John, genuinely startled. “What pocket watch?”

John’s face froze in an incredulous smirk.  He would have assumed this was a practical joke, only Sherlock, as far as John could tell, didn’t know what a practical joke was.  “The one that’s in your pocket,” John stated.  “The one you can’t stop fiddling with.  Is it some kind of… souvenir?  Some trophy from whatever you’ve been doing for the past fifteen months? Like Adler’s mobile?”  Sherlock still only regarded him suspiciously.  “You can’t seriously think you’ve been hiding it.”

Sherlock leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, gaze fixed on John, and pressed his fingertips together just touching his lips.  John frowned, suddenly realizing he was for the first time the object of Sherlock’s scrutiny.  It was unsettling.  “What?” John asked.

The scrutinizing continued unabated.  “Sherlock, _what?_ ” John demanded.

“Tell me about this friend. Roger.”

“What? Why?  What do you want to know?”

“Tell me.  He’s a rugby mate, didn’t you say?  How long have you known him?”

“No, not a rugby mate,” John explained. “That’s the other Roger.”

Sherlock straightened, apparently startled again.  “ _Other_ Roger?  There are _two_ Rogers?”

“Yes. Roger from rugby and Roger from the pub,” John explained with a hint of exasperation.  “Lots of people are named Roger, you know.  Maybe there’s only one Sherlock but there are an awful lot of Rogers, and yes, I’m friends with two of them.”

“And all the time these past two months that you’ve told me you were out with Roger – how many of those times were you referring to ‘Roger from the pub’?”

“What?” asked John, confused not by the question but by Sherlock’s obscure reasons for asking. “I don’t know, probably all of them.  I only see Roger from rugby with the other rugby boys.”

Sherlock was up and pacing.  John could see the wheels turning – not turning, but racing – behind the revitalized detective’s eyes.  “Stupid, so stupid,” he was muttering to himself.  “Can’t believe I didn’t see it before.”  He whirled again on John and inquired forcefully, “When did you meet?”

“I don’t know.  A few months after.”

“After?”

“ _After_.  You know.  Look, why do you want to know this?” John asked, becoming irate.

“How did you meet him?”

“At a pub, like I said.  I was on my way back from the surgery,” John told him.  “And I stopped for a bite after and I accidentally spilled my drink all over him, and why does this matter?” John wanted to know. “And why does this matter _now?_ Because I’m out with him so often?”

“You are out with him quite often,” Sherlock confirmed.

“And… what?” said John. “You’re jealous?”

Sherlock made a face. “Don’t be absurd.”

“Then why does it matter?”

Sherlock threw his hands up in the air – out of frustration, or elation, or merely expelling energy, John couldn’t tell.  “Because he’s _new_ , don’t you see?”  John splayed his palms and shook his head. No, he did not see.  “When I came back and I asked you about all the people you’d met since my funeral, you told me about reporters, and fans, and law enforcement, but you didn’t tell me about this one. _Why?_ ”

John bit off a rude and pointed remark, trying to keep calm. “You know what?” he offered graciously, “I get it. I really do.  You’ve been cooped up in here for two months, waiting for word from your brother, or something, and you’re bored.  It’s frustrating.  I get it.  You’re looking for a mystery to solve, but Sherlock – my social life isn’t one.  Understood?”

Now apparently it was Sherlock’s turn to smirk.  “And now you’re defending him, and why might that be?”

John shook his head and pushed himself out of the chair. “Sod this,” he announced.  “I’m going to bed.”

Sherlock called to his back as John ascended the stairs, “If you ever had him over here, did he seem to be looking for something?”

Paying his question no mind, John replied over his shoulder, “Goodnight, Sherlock.”

He nearly lost his balance when Sherlock gripped his arm and spun him around halfway up the stairs.  The detective had crossed the landing and leapt to his side in two quick bounds. John was surprised – in all their time together, Sherlock had never set foot on the steps leading to John’s bedroom.  “Sherlock, what are you –”

“This is important, John,” Sherlock told him earnestly. “I can’t tell you why.  Did you ever have him over?”

The seriousness in Sherlock’s expression, tinged by desperation, caught John by surprise. “Y-yes,” John stammered, “I had him over… twice, for drinks and a movie.”

“And did he seem to be looking for something?”

“No. I don’t know.”  Sherlock raised his eyebrows, challenging John for a clearer answer. “No,” he said again, defensively. “It’s not like he was poking around in the drawers or anything.”

“And did you leave him alone at any time, or notice after he left that anything was out of place?”

John closed his eyes, his patience wearing thin again. “What could this possibly be about?” he demanded. “What is it, Sherlock?  You think, what, that Roger is some kind of spy for Moriarty?” Sherlock’s only answer was to grimly stare John down. John shook his head and caught his tongue between his teeth and lower lip. He struggled against his anger for words. “That is… I can’t…  You don’t know, Sherlock.  You can’t possibly know… how _hard_ it was, those first few months. How hard it _still_ is.  I tried to move on, but...” He stopped himself, needing but unwilling to explain further. “Roger,” he began again, “was the only one – in all that time – the only one who I could talk to, who I could go out and be with and not be thinking about… He made my life easier. Made it better. He still makes it better. Why would any spy or accomplice of Moriarty’s want that? Hm?”

Sherlock’s fingers had loosened around his arm. His expression had softened as well. John couldn’t be sure, but he thought Sherlock even looked slightly hurt. Yet there was no less urgency in his voice when he said, “And the talking with him that makes your life so much easier – do you talk about me?”

John shook his head again, more disappointed now than frustrated or angry.

Sherlock expanded, his tone sharpening again, “Even in the most circuitous, obscure, or anonymous terms – since I’ve come back, have you talked about me at all?”

Exhaustion ate at him now, and in an effort to put an end to the quarrel, John admitted, “I told him I took on a flatmate. To cover expenses. Sometimes we talk about how aggravating it can be to have someone drop in on you unexpectedly and proceed to wreck havoc with your life.  Other than that, I’ve never spoken of you, indirectly, or ‘circuitously,’ or otherwise.” He added with significance, “And I’ve never mentioned your name with him, not once in the entire time that I’ve known him.”

“…I see,” said Sherlock.

John stated simply, “No. You don’t.”

“When did you tell him you took on a flatmate?”

“A couple of weeks ago. Last month, not long after you came back.”

With that, Sherlock bounded off the stairs and back into their sitting room.  “Is that it, then?” John called after him.

“Yes,” Sherlock told him, hurriedly reaching for his mobile.  “Thank you, John, you’ve been most informative. But now I have some calls to make.”

Dissatisfied, angry, and spent, John marched up the rest of the flight to his room and locked the door behind him.

_The Doctor strode past his companion to the TARDIS’s console and ran through a sequence of button-pushing, flip-switching, bell-ringing and crank-turnings, at the end of which a helmet suspended on cables and wires dropped down from the ceiling. “This,” the Doctor told his companion, “is a chameleon arch. It has the power to overwrite a Time Lord’s genetic coding and replace it with human DNA. Turns a Time Lord completely into a human – one heart and everything that goes with it. And the Time Lordy parts get stored in this.”_

_He pulled an old, worn watch from his pocket and presented it to his companion.  The companion took it, studying it as the Doctor continued, “Including the memories.  Those will have to be supplanted by a false personality.  Well, false memories anyway. He won’t remember the Time Lords, or the war, or the Daleks, or the vortex or any of the other hundred things that helped drive him insane. We’ll give him a new life. Sort of a second chance.”  The Doctor tilted his head, considering. “Or possibly fifteenth. Or sixteenth. I’ve lost count.”_

_He returned to the Master. “Well,” he said, “are you sure you want to do this?  I won’t force you, it’s got to be your choice.”_

_The Master regarded the Doctor sorrowfully. “It didn’t work last time, you know. The perception field failed.”_

_“Only because Martha drew your attention to it,” the Doctor said with encouragement. “I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen again. I’ll keep it safe for you. And you won’t be alone. We’ll keep an eye on you – the both of us,” the Doctor turned to his companion, who nodded confirmation._

_The Master replied, still trembling, “The drums, the constant drumming in my head – I can’t take it. It’s too much, the pain of it, I can’t be…”  He broke off, pressing the heels of his hands into his head and gritting his teeth. Finally he sobbed and told the Doctor, “A simple life. Yes, I think I’d like that.”_

_The Doctor put a comforting hand on the Master’s arm and instructed him solemnly, “Give me your watch.”_

_When it was over, when the last echo of the Master’s screams had faded and he lay once again on the deck of the TARDIS, the Doctor took the Master’s watch out of the chameleon arch and retreated with it into the labyrinth of back rooms. He returned a moment later and announced, “There, the Master’s memories hidden away where no one will ever find them.”_

_His companion knelt over the Master and pinched his wrist, pressed two fingers to his neck. “One pulse, one heart,” said the companion with amazement. “He’s human.”_

_“Just like I said he’d be,” said the Doctor._

_His companion looked down at the other pocket watch, the one the Doctor had pulled from his own pocket – and then looked back up to find the Doctor once again at the console of the TARDIS, pressing buttons and flipping switches, all the same ones as before. And the Doctor’s companion understood that his plan was not yet finished._

 

The next day, John keenly felt it necessary to avoid his flatmate. He entertained the notion of staying locked in his room for a few hours with his laptop and what medical journals he had stashed on his shelves – but indignation compelled him downstairs.  The lease was, after all, in his name now, and the rent checks came wholly from his bank account.  And more than that, he refused to allow Sherlock’s bad behaviors to completely dictate his own.

Instead he descended the stairs and when Sherlock, already dressed for the day, looked up from his own laptop to watch him cross the kitchen, he threw his friend a silent glare before disappearing into the bathroom for a shower.

He emerged some time later, washed and dressed, and immediately set about avoiding eye contact with Sherlock by rummaging in cabinets and poking around in the fridge, hoping that a more important activity would occur to him and give him an excuse to continue ignoring the detective without vacating their shared space, which John had already decided would leave the score at Sherlock 1, John nil.

But after a full minute of rummaging, John announced with false nonchalance, “I’m going to the market. We’re out of tea.”

“No we’re not,” Sherlock informed him from the sitting room – and, turning the corner in curiosity, John found him bent over the coffee table, pouring two cups of tea from a fresh pot.  “Come and have a seat, won’t you?” he invited solemnly.

“I… don’t…  Okay,” John stammered, too taken aback to offer any coherent objections.  He went to the red cushioned chair and lowered himself into it, feeling inexplicably nervous.

Sherlock carried over their cups and saucers, handing one to John and taking a seat in the leather chair with the other.  John watched him as he carefully stirred his tea – four clockwise revolutions before exactly laying the spoon and saucer on the table next to him.  John held his cup merely to keep his fingers occupied.  Finally Sherlock began, “I expect you feel I owe you an explanation about last night.”

Incredulity drew up the corner of John’s mouth.  He managed to say patiently, “And about one or two other things.”

Sherlock pursed his lips and glanced aside, but did not verbally acknowledge John’s comment.  “I should begin by informing you that your friend Roger – well, the person you call Roger whom you were friendly with,” he said, “is being apprehended by agents of the government.  You won’t be seeing him again.  In fact, no one will be seeing him socially again for as long as he lives.”

He let this statement hang in the air for a long moment, perhaps allowing for John to respond.  John just chewed his tongue and glared.

“I know what he meant to you,” Sherlock went on. “In fact I know very well what he meant to you, far better than you realize, which you may choose not to believe. But some of the things you said last night, coupled with other behaviors of yours that I have observed over the past eight weeks –”

John blurted, flabbergasted, “ _My_ behaviors.”

Momentarily thrown by John’s interjection, Sherlock unlocked his jaw and continued, “…informed me that it was highly likely that he was the person that I had been searching for these past months.  I called my brother, and some other of my allies. They confirmed my deduction early this morning and are taking him into custody as we speak.”

John took to examining his tea so as to avoid looking at his flatmate. Somehow, the idea that Roger was actually some kind of criminal mastermind, or at least an accomplice of one, did not faze John in the least.  It was Sherlock’s matter-of-fact delivery of this information and the way he seemed to so casually regard the orchestrations of John’s life that had his thoughts caught in a loop, unable to cohere.  Sherlock was supposed to actually _be_ his friend, but John had been treated much better by Roger, the apparent fraud.

The air between them was oppressively rife with unvoiced tensions.  John heard Sherlock shift in the leather chair, probably waiting for him to respond.  But John couldn’t grasp his thoughts long enough to form cogent expressions. For nearly three years, his life had revolved around Sherlock – first Sherlock’s presence, then his unexpected absence, then his even more unexpected return. With Roger, he’d come very close to breaking free from that orbit. And now Sherlock had ripped the carpet from under John’s feet to bring that illusion crashing down – Roger had only befriended him because he’d known Sherlock. That part of John’s life, too, had revolved around the detective.

John realized now that he would never have his own life again.  And he hated himself for taking comfort in that idea.

The steam curled away from his tea, turning and swirling onto itself before drifting apart into nothing. Sherlock’s fingertips tapped a light rolling rhythm on the armrest.  “I’m sure you have questions,” Sherlock finally said, breaking the silence.

Questions, definitely. Also roaring, railing accusations and protestations, but that would hardly be constructive.

John deliberately set the tea aside, closed his eyes and cocked his head, and pulled his tongue from between his teeth. He had to say something, but it was like a minefield, this conversation: for John’s part, at least, he’d have to tread carefully or risk an irreparable outburst. “What exactly is the government charging him with, then?” he asked evenly, looking once again at his flatmate.

“Strictly speaking,” Sherlock answered, “he won’t be charged with anything. In his… current persona,” he picked his words carefully, “he has not committed any crimes. But he is nonetheless an extremely dangerous individual, responsible for atrocities –”

“Like what?” John asked calmly. “What terrible things he is responsible for?”

“…I can’t tell you that.”

John nodded, turning to watch his tea again. “Right,” he said. “Of course you can’t.”

Sherlock provided, “I can tell you that he was never your friend. That your chance meeting was by his design and that his only goal was to find the object he was searching for, or perhaps to find me if he suspected I was alive.”

“And what object was he looking for?”

Sherlock pressed his lips together and gazed gravely at John.

“Okay,” John said. “What reason might he have had for suspecting you could be alive?”  He added half under his breath, “I certainly didn’t have any.”

Sherlock kept silent.

He was teetering on the edge of a slippery slope.  All his questions and accusations were threatening to spill out, but John bit his tongue, and bit his lip – and then plowed ahead anyway. “Tell me who Roger really is. I deserve to know at least that.”

Sherlock sat stiffly and stared at him, jaw set, expression hard.

John said, “Tell me where you’ve been going all the times you’ve sneaked out the past two months.”

Sherlock was silent.

John said, “Tell me what the story is with you and that pocket watch.”

Sherlock was silent.

“Tell me why you had to pretend to die. Tell me why you couldn’t contact me for more than a year. Tell me why you finally decided to come back.”

Sherlock was silent.

“I see,” he nodded bitterly. “So what you meant was, ‘I’m sure you have questions, but I won’t give you answers.’”

The detective looked away, unable or unwilling to meet John’s accusatory glare.

Enough. John snorted and launched himself out of his chair, going for the door.

But Sherlock suddenly found his voice and jumped up to follow him.  “If it were my choice, I would tell you all of those things,” he said. John paused to regard him. “I gave my word that I wouldn’t.”

John unclenched his jaw.  “Gave your word to _who?_ ”

The corner of Sherlock’s mouth twitched. John thought it might have been a suppressed laugh. “That doesn’t matter,” said Sherlock. “Even if I answered all of your questions, it would only make things worse.  Nothing could ever be the same again – I promise you _that_ is the truth.” 

When John shook his head and snorted again, Sherlock pressed on. “John,” he began earnestly, “I know that since I’ve come back, I may have seemed to show you very little trust – and I know that my actions have given you little reason to trust me in return.  I can only assure you that all of my actions have been necessary, and they have only ever been in the interest of safety – yours and others’.”

“I don’t need –”

“Please,” Sherlock interrupted roughly, “let me finish. I know I haven’t _seemed_ to show you much trust, but I can only tell you, you have _had_ it. Unfailingly. And I have relied on your trust in me.”

John was aware that his hands and his chin were trembling. Sherlock’s earnestness touched him deeply, but John’s pride, and his frustration and anger with the man, struggled vainly against this sentiment. “Abused it, I think you mean,” he challenged.

Sherlock looked down, and John was grateful for the momentary relief from the intensity of his cold grey-blue eyes. 

“What’s important now,” he resumed, “is that with Roger gone, it’s over.  All of it is over.  We can put the last two years, everything to do with Moriarty, behind us.  Mycroft will help me clear my name in the public arena. He can bring me back from the dead, officially.  I can resume – _we_ can resume our work.”

John looked up again and found Sherlock watching him hopefully. “Taking cases. Blogging,” he continued.  “We’ll have our lives back.  Everything can go back to the way it was.  We can go back to normal.”

Despite himself, John felt his heart lift at the thought of this and his chest tightened with restrained emotion.  If it meant having their lives back as they were before Bart’s, John might gladly forgive Sherlock everything – the deception, the lies, the injustices, all of it. “Normal,” he mused with an unbidden smirk. “As normal as we could be, for a high-functioning sociopath and his companion.”

“Companion?” Sherlock repeated curiously.

“What?”

“Nothing – just an odd choice of word.”

“Isn’t that what you’d call me?” said John.

Sherlock gave John a small smile. “Yes, I suppose you have been my companion.”

John felt that he fully understood the meaning behind Sherlock’s words. – Yes, they had been partners of a sort before, but it was up to John to decide now if they would continue to be again.

They regarded each other for a long moment, all of the strain of the last two months seeming to hang between them.  John clenched and unclenched his fist a few times.  “It’s a lot to ask, you know,” he chided Sherlock. “Just – take you at your word for all this.  Forget everything that’s happened.”

“I know.”

But ultimately, John knew, in spite of all their situation’s complexities and unanswered questions, it came down to this: he needed Sherlock. The prospect of having their old lives back was worth any cost.

“I suppose…” John began.

He was interrupted by a soft buzzing.  Sherlock reached into his pocket and withdrew his mobile.  Seeing the number of the caller, he turned away and brought the device to his ear.  “What is it?” he answered, already agitated.

John could hear the voice at the end of the line – primarily the tone, but he thought he could make a few distinct words: “waiting” and shortly thereafter, “ambush.”  Whoever it was sounded anxious.  “What?” Sherlock responded with alarm. “Tell me what happened. When?”

While the caller answered, Sherlock swung back around to look at John, his face tight with concern. John returned the look.

“Yes,” Sherlock said.  “All right. Hurry.”

“What is it?” he asked when Sherlock had ended the call.

Sherlock strode to John, a new energy in his gait, and gripped him by the arms to hold him in place. “John,” he said, his voice sharp with urgency, “I know you may not have much trust in me now – I know you don’t have many reasons to trust me – but you did trust me once –”

John blinked, confused. “Sherlock, what –”

“– _you did trust me once_ ,” Sherlock repeated loudly in a tone that warned John not to interrupt him, because this was important.  “I need you to trust me again, and I need you to do exactly as I say.  Will you do this for me?”

It was like a punch to the chest, those words. “Y- yeah, of course,” stammered a bewildered John.

Sherlock gave him a terse nod and informed him, “Roger has escaped custody. He’s on his way over here.”  Releasing John, he hurried toward the door, instructing over his shoulder, “I need you to go up to your room and watch out the window.  If you see Roger, stay where you are and don’t come down, whatever happens.”

“Where are you going?” John demanded.

“I have to see Mrs. Hudson out and call Mycroft, among other things.”  He stopped at the top step to regard John. “There’s another man coming,” he said with the barest hesitation. “Trust him as you do me, do what he tells you and everything will be fine.”

John expected him to hurry away, but he lingered on the landing – waiting for a response? John nodded and told him, “Okay, sure.”

Pursing his lips, Sherlock turned and disappeared down the stairs, leaving John alone in the suddenly quiet rooms. John rubbed his eyes and shook his head, trying to wrap his mind around everything – Sherlock’s confessions, or lack thereof, the prospect of having their old lives back, and now some imminent danger (although John couldn’t actually explain _what_ the danger might be).  He would need time later to process it all.

And yet for all of that, it was a return to familiarity. The thrill of adrenaline, the orders, the unfailing expectation of obedience and success…

Obedience. John hurried upstairs, collected his gun from his desk drawer, and took up his post by the window.  He felt uncomfortably like Sherlock, peering tensely from behind the curtain at the street below – and suddenly realized that for all those weeks, _this_ is what Sherlock had been doing: watching for Roger.  Though he still couldn’t say why exactly, or what kind of threat Roger really presented. Obviously, from Sherlock’s behaviors, a dangerous one, but that wasn’t much information to work with. And none of it explained his obsession with the pocket watch.

He sat, intensely scrutinizing each Baker Street pedestrian for possible disguise, worried his eyes might deceive him.  He was on edge.  Each insignificant noise set him off – the icemaker downstairs turning on and off, a dog barking in the back alley.  He didn’t even know what he ought to be expecting, or why he should be afraid – but he was, inexplicably, irrationally frightened.

After a short time, one of the passers-by on the sidewalk – short dark hair, about as tall as Sherlock but not as lean, sporting a dark coat that nearly touched the ground – turned toward 221, pausing only a moment at the door before letting himself inside.  John was certain the front door would have been locked, but this man apparently had a key.

John thundered down the stairs, firearm at the ready.  He leapt the last steps to the kitchen door just as the stranger had reached the first landing.  The man grinned what John had to admit was a very winning grin – he was handsome, if you went in for cheekbones and cleft chins.  “Doctor! Doctor Watson!” he greeted with a distinctly American accent.

“Yes,” John replied as he lowered his gun, the edge dying from his voice before it could fully take root. “I’m John Watson.”

“Captain Jack Harkness.  Call me Jack,” said the American, climbing the last of the steps to the flat and extending a hand.  John shook it.  “It’s something to finally meet you.”

“Right,” John said, allowing the man to move quickly past him to conduct a hasty visual sweep of their rooms. “You must be Sherlock’s…”

“Associate, you could call me,” said Jack as he moved through the kitchen to peer into the back room.  “Certainly not friend, if that’s what you were wondering.”

“Sherlock doesn’t have friends,” John stated with an inward smirk.

“Nope, he’s just got the one.” Jack grinned one of his charming, toothy, impeccable American smiles as he strode purposefully back to the sitting room – but something about it struck John as forced, perfunctory. “Where’s Sherlock?”

“Downstairs – seeing out our landlady, calling Mycroft, he said.”

“Ah.” He took a spot by the window and peered out. “Will he be long, then?”

John frowned, realizing that Sherlock had in fact been gone longer than was probably necessary. “Um, I don’t know, he didn’t actually say…”

Jack abandoned the window with another disingenuous grin. “Well, we can’t do anything without him.  We might as well get comfortable,” he said and took a seat on the couch, looking distinctly _un_ comfortable.

This surprised John, who had expected hurried instructions to mount a defense or hasty retreat. “I – I don’t understand. Sherlock made it sound like an emergency.”

“It is,” Jack said, settling in. “Is that tea?”

“What? Um, yeah.” Jack nodded appreciatively and rose to retrieve a cup from the kitchen. Whoever this man was, his head clearly wasn’t where it ought to be. “He said I’m to do as you say,” John prompted.

Jack returned with a mug and lifted the pot to pour for himself. “And I say we have to wait for Sherlock,” he said, calm gravity sinking into his voice.

“Okay.” John took the hint and sat on the edge of his chair while Jack returned to the couch.

Lacking anything to occupy his mind, he flexed his fingers around the pistol, loosening and tightening them in search of a more comfortable and confident grip on the weapon. He felt the rough stippling pressed against his palm, the adrenaline coursing through his body, and his mind began to drift back to Afghanistan…

Jack nodded at the gun. “Sherlock tells me you were in the service?”

Something in the way Jack said this, and the way he regarded him – like the thought of John Watson in a uniform was ever so _quaint_ – put John off.  That, and the idea that Sherlock had been sneaking out of the flat to meet with this man and tell him John’s life story, had John clenching the pistol again.  But no – John trusted Sherlock, and by extension was obligated to trust Jack Harkness.  He deliberately set the gun aside. “I was,” he said. “Army doctor.”

“Ah.” Jack commented with a smirk, “Didn’t do much shooting, then?”

John bristled further.  “I _saw_ plenty of it.”

“Naturally. And helped plenty of people, no doubt.”

“I did my part.  Look, shouldn’t we be…”

“What?”

“I don’t know. _Preparing_ or something? Isn’t Roger on his way over here?”

Jack leveled his eyes at John. “What do you know about Roger?”

“Not very much,” John admitted. It occurred to him then that if they had time to sit and drink tea, perhaps they had time for explanations – maybe John would get some answers to his questions after all. “I know who he isn’t, from what Sherlock told me. I know he isn’t my friend. I know his name isn’t even really Roger. I gather he has something to do with Moriarty and he’s dangerous.”

“Very dangerous,” Jack confirmed gravely. “He killed one agent this morning when he was escaping, and the other might not make it, either. And those aren’t the only deaths he’s responsible for – not by far.”

Any number of legitimate queries might have naturally followed such an ominous statement. But a knot had dropped into John’s stomach, and the question that leapt from his tongue was, “And he’s coming for Sherlock?”

“He is,” said Jack. All pretense at casual amity had evaporated. “And for something he thinks Sherlock has.”

Inwardly, John cursed the entirety of their circumstances – that Moriarty should have ever taken notice of them, that Sherlock should have walked off that roof, that after everything they’d been through together they should still be caught up in a madman’s schemes. He lamented, “What could Sherlock possibly have that Roger would want?” And then it struck him. “The pocket watch?”

Jack’s back straightened, and his eyes snapped to John’s with a new measure of alarm. “You know about that?”

John sat back in the chair, snorted and shook his head. “Just –” he began, and then faltered for words. “– how _blind_ does everyone think I am? I know I’m not – I’m no Sherlock, all right? But with Sherlock playing with the bloody thing every chance he gets –”

“Really?” Jack noted, sounding surprised.

“Yes!” John informed him with exasperation. “How could I _not_ notice it?”

“Do you know what it is?”

John worked his jaw, not knowing how to respond. He’d never considered that it was anything other than what it appeared to be. “Just a useless old watch, I’d have thought – only it’s obviously not, since Roger, or whoever Roger really is, wants it so badly. And who is Roger, anyway?” John demanded.

Jack replied uneasily, “We should wait for Sherlock. He should be back soon.”

“Well then tell me what the pocket watch is.”

Jack didn’t offer a response.

John exhaled heavily through his nose. “This game is getting old.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more,” Jack said, an edge back in his voice. “Believe me, I was against it from the beginning. But one way or another, it’s over today.”

Before John could properly ponder that statement, the sound of footsteps on the stairs had both men tensed and on their feet. John’s eyes darted to the landing in apprehension. “For the record, Doctor Watson,” Jack said to him, “I’m sorry – for what’s about to happen to you. It wasn’t my idea.”

John turned back to Jack, fresh worries in mind. “What do you mean?”

Sherlock stepped through the doorway – his whole body went stiff when he saw Jack and John. “What are you still doing here?” he demanded of Jack. “You’re supposed to be getting him to safety.”

Jack spoke with firmness tinged by regret. “Sherlock, there is no safe place for him anymore.”

It took him a moment to switch from worrying about Jack’s prognostication to realizing Sherlock’s full meaning, but when he did it was like a slap in the face. “Wait a minute,” he demanded, “you were just going to send me away?” Fury boiled inside him. He remembered Sherlock’s lingering look from the top of the stairs – had that been a silent goodbye?  He wondered how many more betrayals he would have to endure.

Sherlock seemed not to have heard him. He was saying to Jack, “There isn’t much time. Take him and go.”

“No. It’s over, Sherlock,” Jack reasoned. “We played our hand and we lost. The master will be here any minute…”

And just as suddenly as he’d had to leap mentally from self-preservation to indignation, John’s anger was run aground by distant alarm bells ringing in his mind. He had heard the moniker “master” before – it was eerily familiar, and tremendously important. Had he heard Sherlock talking about him? Was it something he’d read in a newspaper article about Moriarty? Maybe something Lestrade had mentioned over a pint? Reeling, John wracked his brain trying to remember.

“…know he’s not going to walk in here without a plan,” Jack was still saying, “probably one that endangers innocent lives.”

John blinked and shook his head, trying to get a handle on their conversation but unable to keep up. “Wait,” he said.

“Stop this, Jack,” Sherlock commanded with urgency.

Jack argued doggedly, “There’s only one man who can control him now, Sherlock.”

“Wait a moment. Just wait!” John said again.

Sherlock whirled on him. “John, get out of here, now. Go to Mycroft’s, he can help you.”

“You think he doesn’t have people watching the Diogenes Club?” Jack asked, incredulous.

Ignoring him, John insisted to Sherlock, “I’m not going anywhere! Why, so you can face Roger alone? Maybe get thrown off another building in the process?”

Sherlock’s face was set. “This isn’t the time.”

John snorted with disgust. “Look,” he said. “I’m not moving. Not until I get an explanation.” He shook his head, looking from Sherlock to Jack, hoping to exploit the rift that had evidently opened between the two conspirators. There was too much to take in, too much uncertainty, and John decided that he was done – just _done_ – being dragged along in the middle.  He expounded, “I’ve given you a lot of rope, Sherlock. God knows I have.  But you have officially reached the end of the line.  Now I will go wherever you tell me, I will follow every instruction, but only after you explain what the _hell_ is going on here. All right?  I don’t care if Moriarty himself walks through that door –”

Jack interrupted, “It is Moriarty.”

“ _Jack!_ ” Sherlock whipped around to stare flabbergasted at the American, clearly ready to tackle him to the ground to stop him speaking.

“ _Roger is Moriarty_ ,” Jack told John again, defiant. “It’s too late now, Sherlock. We have to tell him. We need him.”

If alarm bells of distant recognition had rung before, now John’s head was filled with reverberating klaxons. Jack Harkness’s statement was patently absurd, but for no earthly reason, John suspected it might be true.  Grasping for the last threads of his sanity, John rationalized, “How… can _Roger_ be Moriarty? That doesn’t make _any_ kind of sense!... They don’t look anything like each other! Roger’s taller than Moriarty was, for God’s sake! Roger’s black!”

“You’re right, it probably doesn’t make sense to you,” said Jack, “but you know it’s true, don’t you? Look inside yourself and ask yourself if it’s true.”

John gasped for breath and backed away, only stopping when his legs met the arm of the chair behind him.

Sherlock snarled at Jack, “What do you think you’re doing?”

“He’s the _only one_ who can resolve this,” Jack persuaded confidently. “You know I’m right.”

Unexpectedly, Sherlock’s determination seemed to waver.  With more than a hint of desperation, he pleaded to Jack, “ _We gave our word._ ”

Jack retorted sharply, “And how many more people have to die for our word? How many people did Moriarty kill? How many good agents have to die trying to contain him? We tried this plan for three years, but we failed.  Roger, Moriarty – even if you stop him now, he’ll escape again, and he’ll come after you both to get what he wants.” He raised an arm to stab a finger in John’s direction. “A life on the run? A life in hiding? That isn’t what he’d want!” __

John could see that Sherlock’s composure was cracking. He was staring at the floor, his chest heaving, his expression pained.

Jack went on less forcefully now, saying with sympathy, “It was a brilliant idea. But now it’s over. We need him.” He extended an open palm to the detective. “I’m sorry,” Jack said sincerely. “Give it to me – I’ll do it.”

There was a heavy moment that followed this instruction, during which Sherlock seemed to be waging a war of will against Jack’s insistent gaze. The consulting detective stood tensely, silently, considering the American’s open palm.  John could read reluctance in his face and the stillness of his hands, unclenched but frozen at his side, and watched it slowly transforming into resignation.

Although reluctant to interrupt whatever it was that was transpiring between the two men, John’s increasing sense of unease prompted him to ask, “Do what?”

But they were too engrossed in their silent exchange to hear him. Finally, Sherlock swallowed hard, and he told Jack, “No. That won’t be necessary.”

Something in his tone caught John’s interest. He sounded… different.  Somewhere in the rumbling bass of his voice and his characteristic exactness, John could hear notes of remorse and compassion – two emotions normally foreign to Sherlock’s repertoire.

And he raised his eyes to Jack’s to sorrowfully announce, “I’ll do it.”

Jack nodded, taking a respectful step backward.  The two men turned to John. 

John’s instincts went into overdrive, his pounding heart dropping into his stomach as Sherlock stepped toward him. He became suddenly acutely aware that his back was to a wall and both men stood between him and the only exit.  Every muscle in John’s body screamed that he was in sudden mortal peril, and not from whoever Roger really was. “Do what?” he asked again, desperation creeping into his voice.  “Sherlock, do what?”

Sherlock closed the distance between them in three easy strides. They were face to face, as close as they had ever been. “I’m sorry, John,” Sherlock told him, his voice and his expression overflowing with regret.  “I’m so, so sorry.”

He grasped John’s shoulders, drew him forward, and before John could object, Sherlock’s lips were pressed lightly against his own. John was far too bewildered to register anything but the brief sensation of this – he had no opportunity to reflect on it or to feel either pleasure or revulsion.

Sherlock pulled away, and as astonishing as that moment had been, the tears John saw now in his friend’s normally impassive grey eyes were equally startling.  But John had no time to consider it, either.  No time to ask about it, or demand what the kiss was for, or why Sherlock was apologizing.  Because Sherlock simply said, “Goodbye, John.”

Exactly as he had said from the roof. John braced himself for something awful.

Sherlock brought up his hand and turned the open pocket watch toward John.

Rays and tendrils of light burst out of it, and the world as he knew it disappeared in a singing, screaming stream of memories.

John Watson was ended.

The Doctor was returned.

_Sherlock turned away from the Master’s prone form, now laid comfortably on a small sofa at the far end of the control platform, to join the Doctor at the TARDIS’s controls. He was circling the round console, going through what Sherlock now recognized as the chameleon arch’s startup procedure. “What identity did you create for him?”_

_The Doctor smiled proudly. “James Moriarty, computer hardware specialist,” he said, pausing in his flip-switching and knob-jiggling to gaze fondly at the Master’s now-human form. “I created it special for him. He always did like to tinker with things – you know, before he decided to try and take over the universe and lost his mind...”_

_Sherlock nodded noncommittally, not really listening. The Doctor’s watch was heavy in his hand – he was running his fingertip over the engravings on the watch’s casing, feeling its age. It was probably centuries old, maybe a millennia. Set against his mere thirty-four years, it was nearly incomprehensible – and he also reasoned that the two years he had spent traveling with the Doctor in his inexplicable blue box would to Sherlock span the time of a finger’s snap._

_Obviously, this had always been a temporary arrangement, as with all things. But that the end should come so suddenly and so soon he had not anticipated. So it was with unhappy resignation and a heavy heart that he closed his fingers around the Doctor’s watch and asked, “And what identity have you created for yourself?”_

_The Doctor regarded his companion with an appreciative smile. “Ah, Sherlock, you always were too clever to be traipsing around the universe with me on these adventures.” He shook a finger at him. “I never should have brought you – always mucking about with my plans and spoiling all my big surprises by guessing them ahead of time.”_

_Sherlock replied as though he’d been stung, “I like to think I’ve been useful on occasion.”_

_“Once or twice,” the Doctor jokingly admitted. “There was that time on the Mars colony when you discovered the Baracta infiltration. Oh! And when we were trapped in the wooden dungeon on Old Atraxia – remember that?”_

_But Sherlock only regarded him evenly – he wasn’t biting this time. He had his confirmation. Now he wanted his explanation._

_The Doctor seemed to understand. “Well,” he said with nonchalance, nodding again toward the Master – toward Moriarty – before renewing his activities at the console, “it wouldn’t seem fair to just wipe his memory and leave him down there all alone. We’ve been through too much together, him and I. Seems fitting that we should share the same fate.”_

_Transparent and inadequate. Sherlock chewed his tongue and said, “Rule number one: the Doctor lies.”_

_The Doctor’s hand stopped on a lever that for no logical reason resembled a Jeep’s gearshift. He looked down, catching his tongue against his lower lip when it flicked out during the brief pause. “Very good, of course,” he conceded. His dark guarded eyes darted up to meet Sherlock’s patient grey ones for a fraction of a moment before retreating to the TARDIS’s console screen, and his hands moved to the keypad beneath it to type. “I was married once, you know – of course you know,” he added quickly, “clever as you are, I’m sure you figured that out a long time ago.”_

_Sherlock shifted uncomfortably on his feet. The bite in the Doctor’s tone informed him that he did not mean it as a compliment this time. On Earth, Sherlock was accustomed to that tone; elsewhere, it was normally foreign to him._

_“Kids, too,” the Doctor went on. “That was before the TARDIS. Before… well, before a lot of things. Anyway, the point is, I wasn’t always the dashing and adorable adventurer you see before you.” He ran a hand through his short, honey-blonde hair, playful pride flashing briefly across his features. “Point is,” he repeated, melancholy settling in again, “used to be, a longtime ago – a long, long, long, long…_ long _time ago, I wanted nothing more than a simple life.”_

_Sherlock pressed his lips together in a wan, defeated smile. “I’ve always wanted anything but a simple life.”_

_The Doctor gave him a lopsided, mischievous grin. “I think between the two of us we can find a comfortable balance.”_

_The foundation beneath Sherlock’s despondency cracked at this unexpected statement.  His gaze shot up to find the Doctor wryly observing him with surprise of his own. “What – you didn’t think that after all this I was just going to drop you back on Earth with a speech about… hills of beans and ‘we’ll always have the TARDIS,’ did you?”  The Doctor seemed thoroughly amused.  “And they call you brilliant.”_

_Sherlock felt his heart beating harder against his sternum as the Doctor continued explaining. He knew that the outlook was still not bright and sunny, but that their parting might not be imminent – parting in the strictest sense, anyway – was a definite boon for Sherlock. “No, I thought we might try being flatmates,” the Doctor was saying. His speaking pace picked up, excitement sounding in his voice again as it always did when he began laying out a cunning plan. “Get a little place in, I dunno, London maybe. Create nice unobtrusive human lives for ourselves. – What do you think? His new identity, and mine, they’re both right here laid out in black and white for you. I thought your brother, what was his name? Martin? Morton?”_

_“Mycroft.”_

_“Yes, the one in the government – he can use this to supply the requisite paperwork. Set the Master up someplace that you’d normally frequent anyway just to keep an eye on him – hope you don’t mind, shouldn’t be too much of a burden. Oh!” he clapped his hands. “I’m forgetting the best part. You!”_

_Sherlock raised his brow, not understanding. “What about me?”_

_“Well, you’ll get to reinvent yourself, too,” the Doctor proclaimed, grinning a mad grin. “After everything that you’ve seen and done, I could hardly ask you to go back to your old life – all those dangerous chemistry concoctions, getting into trouble at every opportunity – no, that would never do.  So. You’re the cleverest human I’ve met. If you could do anything in the world, other than fly around in my TARDIS, what would it be?  Something we can partner up on, you understand, since you’ll be keeping an eye on me, too.  Something exciting, to keep our interest, but also nothing fantastical. Mundane, but not_ simple _…”_

_Sherlock thought about it a moment, and then said definitely, “Consulting detective. I’ve always had an interest in the macabre, and as it happens I’ve helped my brother on a few international cases already.”_

_“Consulting detective it is!” the Doctor grinned – and then frowned. “Incidentally, I assume you know what that is? I’ve never actually heard of it.”_

_“That’s because it doesn’t exist yet.”_

_He grinned again. “Fantastic. Brilliant. Once we’ve acted out our first meeting, we can invent it together.”_

_Sherlock smiled weakly in return, but after a moment of letting the Doctor silently resume his work with the TARDIS’s switches, he finally decided to name the proverbial elephant in the room. “When you’re done with that device, you won’t remember me anymore,” he said surely, sadly._

_The Doctor paused his work again to regard his companion. “Strictly speaking, you’re quite correct. It will be as though we never met. Subconsciously, though, I_ will _remember you. It won’t be a joyful reunion, when we contrive to meet for the first time. But he’ll remember you, deep down, and he’ll gravitate toward the familiar – it’s a very human instinct, that.”_

_Sherlock’s eyes narrowed skeptically. “You’ve done this before, I take it.”_

_The Doctor glanced down uncomfortably. “Yes. Once.”_

_“Obviously you would have needed a companion. And your companion at the time – a woman, I assume – did you remember her? Gravitate toward her?”_

_He bit his tongue again, avoiding Sherlock’s perceptive eyes. “Martha,” he said, pronouncing her name as though pulling it from a distance. “No, I didn’t remember her, not at all. But it was different,” he insisted, looking up again. “She was just – she was a travelling partner. A friend. She wasn’t… she was nothing_ more _…_ ”

_Sherlock laughed lightly – they were rarely so open with each other as this. But then, it seemed their opportunities for it were coming to a close. He looked down, trying to hide the fact that his emotions were getting the better of him. “He won’t be you.”_

_“He will,” the Doctor told him patiently. “I mean, he won’t be able to save the world and he’ll have no idea what a sonic screwdriver is, but I’ll be him and he’ll be me in most of the important ways. I created this personality a long time ago. Sort of my retirement plan. He’s what I’d like to be if I’d been human. You’ll like him.” He added proudly, “I even tweaked him a bit so that he’ll be a good partner-in-crime for you. You know, useful to have around. I could never stand not to be useful. Had to make a pretty big concession on that front, you know. I made him a soldier.” He said with an expression of distaste, “Guns. But I’ve also made him a doctor, to make up for it. Not_ the _Doctor, but_ a _doctor.”_

_“He may not like me,” Sherlock noted. “It’s extraordinary that you like me. Most people don’t find me exactly endearing.”_

_“Oh he’ll like you. No worry on that front. He’ll like you because I like you. That’s how it works.”_

_Sherlock wouldn’t look up, but he could feel the Doctor’s gaze on him nonetheless. Sherlock knew he was waiting for his approval. Stalling, Sherlock pointed out, “The world does tend to need you.”_

_“Ah, the world, the world,” mused the Doctor. “I suppose I have to be done saving it one day. I’ll tell you what – if the apocalypse comes, you have my permission to open my watch. And that’ll be it. My human identity will be supplanted by my identity as a Time Lord. Your new flatmate will cease to exist. I’ll have two hearts again.”_

_“And suppose the world doesn’t need you. Suppose the apocalypse doesn’t come. You’ll be human and you’ll merely…”_

_The Doctor finished for him, “Die of old age.” He smiled a weak smile. “As far as ways to die go, it’s possibly the best one, don’t you think?” Sherlock was watching him sternly, clearly uncomfortable with the entire line of discussion. “I’ve seen the end of the universe. And the beginning of it. I’ve seen the extinction of whole races of beings, including my own. He and I,” he glanced meaningfully at Moriarty, “we’re the last of the Time Lords. And this is my last regeneration, did you know that?” the Doctor asked.  “The end is coming for me, either way. Yes, I could spend the next several hundred years crisscrossing the stars, seeing more of history, waging more battles – and with a hundred new companions, besides. Or I can spend another fifty years living peacefully on my favorite planet in the universe, with just one.”_

_Sherlock looked away again, trying to maintain his composure._

_“Do you know how many companions I’ve had?” the Doctor asked. “I tried to remember them all last night, before we went to rescue the Master. I can, too – remember them all. All three-hundred and eighty-seven.” He stepped toward Sherlock and grasped his arms. “I’d be honored if you’d be my last.”_

_The Doctor’s companion laughed again and closed his eyes. That was it, then – the end, and a beginning, wrapped up as one. Nodding, he said, “I know a woman in central London who will rent us some rooms.”_

_The Doctor grinned and slapped his arms, abandoning him to attend the TARDIS’s engine controls. “Perfect! What’s the address?”_

_“221 Baker Street.”_

_“221 Baker Street, it is.” The Doctor moved levers, turned cranks, and maneuvered a cyclic as the TARDIS whirred to life – buzzing, creaking, and groaning the way only a time machine with its parking brake on can. “I’ll park the TARDIS in a back alley and put her cloaking unit on,” he said. “You’ll want to have her by just in case something happens.”_

_Once they were safely landed, the Doctor lingered for a moment at the controls, his fingers resting lightly on the engine levers as he gazed up at the console’s central column with its delicate uppy-downy machinery. Finally, he cleared his throat and turned to his companion again. “Well,” he said. They stood together for a moment, avoiding each others’ eyes. He cleared throat and began again, extending his hand, “Right. Well. My watch?”_

_Sherlock blinked – he’d forgotten he was holding it. He handed it over wordlessly._

_Gingerly, the Doctor pulled down the helmet and inserted the watch in its place. “When we’re done here,” he said, “you’ll take this watch and keep it with you always. You must never let it out of your sight. It’s got a perception field on it that will block me from taking note of it, so you don’t have to worry that I’ll come across it and open it, but it’s important that you have it at hand should you require it.” He turned around to stare Sherlock directly in the eye. “Promise me you’ll only open it if you absolutely have to.”_

_Sherlock nodded._

_“Good. I’ve left some recordings in the TARDIS memory for you – instructions on what to do with the TARDIS, some just-in-case eventualities, that sort of thing. I’ll trust you and your brother to file the necessary paperwork to make me and Jim over there legal entities under the state, as well as to get your career on track. Oh, and I’ve left the contacts for some friends of mine at an organization called Torchwood. They can help square things away for us. Jack Harkness knows I’ve been planning this. He agreed a long time ago to help me put this plan into action, when the time came. Ask for him.”_

_Sherlock nodded again, silent, still struggling with the enormity and finality of it all._

_The Doctor clasped his arm and told him kindly, “Think of it as just another adventure.”_

_Then he turned and took a long, lingering look around the room. “Well, if I never see you again – goodbye, old girl,” the Doctor said to the TARDIS, laying his hand on the console. “We’ve had some times, haven’t we?” He let the moment hang for a spell, before patting the console conclusively._

_“Here we go, then,” he said as he adjusted the helmet about his skull. “What shall I be called? I was John Smith last time – I don’t think I fancy it again. Care to do the honors?”_

_“Watson, then,” Sherlock said and swallowed hard. “Doctor John Watson.”_

_“John Watson,” the Doctor pronounced approvingly, and then sighed. “Shame that I never got to be a ginger.”_

_Sherlock grasped the ominous lever. “Are you ready?”_

_“As ever.”_

_“Then hold onto this thought,” Sherlock said, stepping close. “That the Doctor…” he stopped and corrected himself. “…that Doctor Watson_ needs _Sherlock Holmes.”_

_The Doctor smiled fondly at his companion. “He certainly does.”_

_Sherlock and the Doctor locked eyes one last time – and then Sherlock adjusted his fingers on the lever, and pulled._

 

“All right!” the Doctor cheered, spinning on the spot and clapping. “I’m back!  Well, mostly back – it’s all still…” he waved his hands about his head, “…swimming around up in here.  Okay. Taking an inventory.  221B Baker Street – got it.  TARDIS parked out back – yes?” he asked Sherlock in a rush, and then sped on, answering himself, “Yes, it is, I remember parking it there.  Jack!”

“Doctor!” Jack greeted him for the second time, grinning widely – and this time genuinely – as the Doctor bounded across the room and embraced him briefly. “It’s good to have you back.”

“It’s good to be back. Though it doesn’t exactly feel like I left. Disconcerting, that. You have something of mine, don’t you?” Jack withdrew the sonic screwdriver from his pocket and handed it over. “There it is,” said the Doctor with obvious admiration.

Sherlock reminded them, “The Master…”

“Yes! That’s right,” said the Doctor.  “The Master’s almost here. Roger from the pub, not Roger from rugby. Can’t believe I was on a rugby team! What a perfect lark. Come for his watch, no doubt – but how can he know about it?”

Jack started, “We think he –”

“No, stop,” the Doctor cut him off, “I can get this. The biological overwrite obviously was incomplete.  Probably he was too psychologically damaged by then for the new personality to hold.  Moriarty became a madman, became obsessed with Sherlock –” the Doctor looked at Sherlock.  “– sorry about that, that’s probably to do with my final words to him, ‘we’ll be keeping an eye on you.’  Obviously the new personality fused with his memories and the Time Lords’ signal, which would have made him both megalomaniacal, obsessive, and generally unhinged – and the lingering memories of his old life and of Sherlock and me that were buried beneath his psychosis and the false memories implanted by the chameleon arch –”

“Doctor,” Jack said warningly, effectively derailing the Doctor’s tangential train of thought.

“Right, of course,” said the Doctor, nodding appreciatively at Jack. “Master’s on his way, less time for talk. Short version. Moriarty became obsessed with Sherlock. And so there was the pool, and the woman, and the trial – that was quite a show – and then when he shot himself on the roof of the hospital –”

A new voice came from the doorway: “Instinctive regeneration.”

It was Roger – or, rather, the Master, looking just as ordinary and unassuming as John Watson’s memories recalled, but lethally dangerous for all that.  He stood there, eyes fixed on the Doctor, smirking in a way that was somehow identical to the way Moriarty had looked at them both at the pool so many months ago.  “Very good, John,” he said.  “I honestly didn’t expect you to be able to figure it out. Especially after all those months of palling around with me, with _no_ idea who I really was… My transformation was flawed. Incomplete. I was still partly a Time Lord the entire time and didn’t know it. Now, after that _tet a tet_ at the hospital, I’m back almost to my old self.” He tapped his chest. “Two hearts again, the ability to regenerate…” Then he tapped his head. “But it’s not all up there. My memories. And how can I continue enacting all of my _masterful_ plans if I don’t really know who I am?”  He added despondently, “I don’t even know my real name!  Just my title. _The Master._ But I remember enough, now. I remember what made me this way.  So, my pocket watch. The thing that will make me whole again.” And now he turned to level his eyes for the first time at Sherlock. “Why don’t you tell me where it is, Doctor?”

Momentarily gripped by confusion, the Doctor looked quizzically to Sherlock and to Jack, who both seemed thoroughly _not_ thrown by the Master’s bizarre insinuation. He began to explain, “Actually…”

“Not now, John,” Sherlock interrupted, evidently set on a conversation with the Master.  “So, you finally found me.”

“Yes.  Though I’ll congratulate you,” the Master replied. “It was no easy feat. I looked everywhere for you, but this is the very last place I expected you to be hiding – and looking like that, no less. How did you manage to regenerate in the same form? Or regenerate at all – I understood this to be your last regeneration.”

One corner of Sherlock’s mouth lifted with pride. “Sliced off a pinky before I jumped.”

“Of course!” the Master grinned admiringly. “Healed yourself and siphoned off the regenerative energy into the finger. Clever. Quite brilliant.”

“Sherlock…” the Doctor tried to interrupt.

“I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to keep you from that pocket watch,” Sherlock went on, undaunted. “What makes you think I’ll just hand it over now?”

“Because I’m going to force you to, of course.”

“Sherlock…”

“Not now, Doctor Watson,” Jack interjected, throwing a warning glance at the Doctor.  Then, to the Master, demanding: “How?”

“Moriarty’s network. Roger’s network now.” He held up a smartphone. “Same way I broke into the Tower of London. Same way I talked you into walking off that ledge.  I push one little button on this phone and the Prime Minister, the Queen, and two Princes of England all shuffle off this tedious mortal coil.”

Sherlock remarked with some trepidation, “Not even Moriarty could pull that off.”

“But the Master could,” their villain countered smugly, “and I’ve had more than a year to plan it.  I just needed you. And now I have you. So. My pocket watch. My memories. Oh, and the keys to your time machine, if you don’t mind.”

“Well,” Sherlock told him, “even if I was so inclined to oblige you, I’m afraid I’m not able. You see,” he said with a smug smirk of his own, “I’m not the Doctor.”

The Master blinked. “What?”

Finally, the Doctor had his opportunity to speak again. “Yeah, this has gone on long enough. I’m the Doctor.”

“What?”

It was as though all the tension surrounding the Master had evaporated into a fog of confusion. The Doctor continued, “Yeah. I’m the Doctor. He’s Sherlock Holmes. Just a man. An incredibly brilliant man, but a man, not a Time Lord. Time Lord’s me.”

The Master looked from Sherlock to the Doctor and back again – they could see the wheels clicking into place behind his eyes…

Captain Jack slammed into him from behind. They were a struggling tangle of limbs, and then Sherlock threw himself into the fray, and a moment later the Master was restrained and Jack had his smartphone in hand.  The Doctor objected, “What are you doing? – That’s enough.”

“Did he send anything?” Sherlock demanded of Jack, ignoring him.

Jack examined the phone. “No.”

“ _That’s enough!_ ” the Doctor thundered. Jack and Sherlock snapped their attention to him, surprised. The Master just glared. “ _Sherlock. Let him go._ ”

Taken aback by the Doctor’s sudden ferocity, Jack and Sherlock exchanged a glance and then released the Master, who stumbled away from them to fall at the Doctor’s feet.  Jack protested, “You should at least let us restrain him!”

The Doctor crouched to face his fellow Time Lord, telling his friends, “The Master has always been my responsibility. And as you said, I’m the only one who can control him.”

Shaking his head, Sherlock turned and stepped toward the kitchen, pulling out his mobile and saying into as he went, “Are you still there? How much did you hear?...”

Disregarding him, the Master bemoaned to the Doctor, “How can it be you? A year and a half – and a year and a half before that as well… it never occurred to me…”

The Doctor sighed and regarded the Master with a gentle smile. “Like you said, everything up there’s a bit wobbly,” he explained. “What memories you retained after using the chameleon arch were distorted.  Some part of your mind remembered us both – but you fixated on Sherlock Holmes instead of John Watson.  Not so surprising, really. As humans go, he does seem like a more likely candidate to be a Time Lord – he’s far more brilliant than John Watson. But then, John Watson was in many ways more human than Sherlock Holmes, and that was rather the point… After your partial transformation, after you remembered there was a Doctor, you simply assumed it was Sherlock. A natural enough assumption to make. Incidentally, if you knew this was my last regeneration, why did you suspect Sherlock would even be alive after walking off that roof?”

Jack informed him darkly, “He dug up Sherlock’s grave.”

“Looking for his watch. Of course,” the Doctor nodded.

“Please,” the Master begged, trembling on the floor at the Doctor’s feet, “please, you have to give it to me. As I am, I’m still… half Moriarty. Half Time Lord. I’m nothing but a petty, pathetic, conniving criminal – a shadow of who I was born to be.”

“Not all that pathetic,” Jack commented wryly. “You did break into the Tower of London, the Bank of England, and Pentonville penitentiary all on one day – no easy feat.”

The Doctor gave Jack a look that clearly conveyed how much he was not helping. “I can’t,” he answered the Master. “I can’t help you this time, not that way.” At the look of desperation in the Master’s eyes, he explained with sympathy, “I didn’t know the chameleon arch would do this to you – there’s no knowing what will happen if I try to reverse it.  Let me take you to the TARDIS.  Give me time.  Let me try to figure out what went wrong, and then we’ll try this again.  Another personality, another new start…”

Sherlock reentered the room, turning his phone off. “That was my brother, listening in,” he announced, eyes leveled at the Master. “All of your would-be assassins have been killed or taken into custody. You won’t be threatening anyone anymore.”

In a blur, the Master lunged, the Doctor fell, and then a deafening bang filled the flat.  The Master was standing by the red chair, John Watson’s service pistol in his outstretched hand. By the window, Jack grunted and collapsed on the floor, red petals of blood blossoming around the hole in his chest.

The Doctor cried in protest and moved to launch himself at the Master.

But the Master pointed the gun at the Doctor, stopping him. “Your last regeneration, Doctor,” the Master said, all empathy vanished from his voice and demeanor. “Don’t think you want to risk it, do you? Now.” He turned the gun toward Sherlock, keeping his gaze fixed on the Time Lord. “My pocket watch, if you please.”

Sherlock stood absolutely still, but absolutely calm. He glanced uneasily at the Doctor.

The Master tilted his head. “Come on, Doctor.  You have everything to lose and nothing to gain by keeping this from me.”

“You could die.”

“I’d just regenerate.”

“No,” said the Doctor. “The fact that you regenerated the last time – that was a fluke, a miracle – very, very, highly unlikely. There’s no telling what would happen to you this time.”

“Death…”

“Or worse.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

The Doctor shook his head. “Just give me time,” he pleaded. “You and I, we’re the last of an entire species. You didn’t recognize me, but I recognized you – when I was John Watson, I recognized you, even not knowing what a Time Lord was. That’s why I was able to see the watch,” he briefly explained to Sherlock, “because of the Master’s influence on my subconscious.” Back at the Master, “And that’s why we got on so well. We were gravitating toward the familiar. And you may not remember it now, but once upon a time, we were even friends.”  The Master’s face twitched. “We used to play together, on Gallifrey, as kids.  We were at school together.  We were even in a band.”

“Once you give me my watch back, we can happily reminisce.”

“If you’re alive, or not completely, unintelligibly insane.”

“That’s my risk to take,” the Master said.

“No, it’s not,” said the Doctor. “You’re not in your right mind.”

“That’s the point!” the Master exclaimed. Then he clicked back the pistol’s hammer, causing Sherlock to straighten. “You’re testing my patience, Doctor.”

The Doctor looked from Sherlock to the Master, indecision showing 0n his face. “Please,” he tried, “I know you want to be whole again, but this isn’t the way.”

With a cry of frustration, the Master swung the gun to back at the Doctor –

“No, stop!” Sherlock shouted suddenly, commanding both Time Lords’ attention. And then he reluctantly admitted, “I have your watch.”

The Doctor’s eyes widened in disbelief. “No – I hid it in the TARDIS. No one could ever find it – they’d need at least –”

“– What?” Sherlock challenged, looking evenly at the Doctor. “Nearly eighteen months?”

The Doctor shook his head. “Sherlock, don’t.”

“Give it to me,” the Master demanded.

The Doctor whirled. “It could kill you!”

Sherlock reached into his pocket again and withdrew the watch. “Nobody’s going to die today,” he told the Doctor calmly, and tossed the watch to the Master.

The Master caught it with his free hand, then dropped the gun on the cushioned chair to cradle the precious device in both palms, clearly relishing the fruition of his long-laid plans and the expectancy of what he was about to achieve.

“Please,” the Doctor pleaded one last time. “Please, I’m begging you.”

The Master smiled down at the Doctor, a glint of madness still bright in his eyes… and opened the watch.

Light spilled out of it and into the Master’s eyes. He stood, mesmerized by it – transfixed and blissful. But then, the light began to fade, and with it the Master’s smile. He was trembling, then convulsing, his face contorted with anguish. Finally he threw his head back as a strangled cry escaped his throat, before slumping to the floor in a silent heap.

The Doctor scrambled to his side. “What have you done?” he demanded of Sherlock, and placed a hand on the Master’s chest. But then the anger on the Doctor’s face morphed into sudden surprise. “He’s alive.” Snatching the watch up off the floor, he said with evidently greater surprise, “This is _my_ watch.”

Sherlock had moved to crouch over Jack. “Captain Jack,” he said, rousing the Torchwood agent with a few light slaps to the cheek.

Jack came awake with a roaring gasp and sat bolt upright, taking in his surroundings with wild, darting glances. Seeing there was no immediate threat, he commented as he let Sherlock help him climb to his feet, “You know, as many times as I’ve died, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.” He grimaced at the Master’s body. “What did I miss?”

Sherlock said simply, “I gave the Master the Doctor’s watch.” At the Doctor’s quizzical stare, he continued, “Well, it was obvious the Master would rather kill the both of us than settle for the assistance you’d offered. When you transformed into a Time Lord again, it seemed like there was still some essence left in the watch. I surmised that, in giving him the Doctor’s watch, he would be infused with whatever little of the Doctor’s personality remained inside. I doubted if it would cure him of his psychosis, but thought it likely to at least mitigate it. And it also seemed likely that the shock of it would incapacitate him at least long enough to restrain him. Complete unconsciousness is better than I’d hoped for.”

Jack folded his arms across his chest, obviously impressed. 

“Was that your plan all along?” the Doctor asked.

Shifting on his feet, the detective cleared his throat to admit, “Given the scenario, I had to improvise.”

The Doctor grinned up at Sherlock with unmasked awe and declared with a wide, admiring grin, “Fantastic.”

Sherlock smiled.

 

With the Master safely installed in a secure room deep inside the TARDIS, the detective and the Time Lord saw their ally out, pausing beyond the police box’s blue doors to say their farewells. “Well, that’s a job done,” said the Doctor. “Not precisely well done, but done at least. – I’m sorry about your agents, Jack.”

Jack replied solemnly, “UNIT agents, not mine. And they knew the risks.”

“Small consolation.”

“Very small,” he tersely agreed. “What are your plans for him now?”

The Doctor shrugged. “Keep him locked up until I can figure out a way to help him.”

“And what if you can’t?”

“All the time I have now? I will,” he said confidently.

Jack shook his head, clearly torn between faith and skepticism. “Well, if you ever run into any problems, you know how to find me.”  He straightened and turned to the detective. “Well, Sherlock,” he said, offering his hand, “it’s been an interesting partnership.”

Sherlock considered his hand for an extended moment before slowly shaking it. “Your help was appreciated.”

Jack pursed his lips. “No hard feelings about how it ended, I hope.”

“You were right,” Sherlock soberly conceded, and turned to look meaningfully at the Doctor. “We needed him.”

Jack smiled brightly. “You know, I didn’t want to suggest it before with everything we had on our plates, but now that it’s over, I don’t suppose you’d want to go and get a drink sometime?”

Sherlock only frowned at him, confused.

“Yeah, never mind,” said Jack.  He shrugged, dropping his arms to his sides, and started to back away. “And that’s my cue. Sorry your retirement didn’t work out, Doctor.”

“Life wouldn’t be half as interesting if it always went as planned. It was very good of you to have done as much as you did.”

Jack waved it away. “Consider it partial payment for all the times you’ve saved the planet.”

The Doctor nodded appreciatively.  “Oh,” he added as Jack turned to go, “and do me a favor and thank whichever of your agents it was that pretended to be Harriet for me.”

“Gwen Cooper. Absolutely, Doctor – will do.” He gave them one last grin and a wave, “Till the next big emergency!” then turned the corner, and was gone.

Sherlock stood with his hands in his pockets in the cool spring air, still taking everything in. He felt a hand on his back and turned to find the Doctor smiling at him – the Doctor’s smile. John’s smile.  Sherlock returned it weakly, letting the Doctor precede him into the TARDIS.

When he finished lingering in the alley, Sherlock found the Doctor on the control platform, circling the central console admiringly, running his fingers across the controls.  “Can’t believe it’s only been three years,” he mused aloud. “Definitely feels longer. Ah, old girl – I’ll bet I missed you without even knowing it.”

Sherlock slipped out of his wool coat and blue scarf, draping them over a railing and taking a seat on the steps, his back to the Doctor.  Once again, Sherlock found himself facing beginnings and endings all at once. He had never expected that this one might be as difficult as the last.

The Doctor’s footsteps echoed against the outer walls as he crossed the platform to sit with Sherlock. “Well. We had some good times while it lasted, didn’t we?” he said.

Sherlock laughed sadly. “We did, at that. I didn’t honestly expect to…”

“To what? Like him as much?” Sherlock couldn’t find his voice to respond. “You know, this whole transformation thing,” the Doctor explained, “it’s a lot like time travel. It’s all bunched up and twisted together on itself – he’s still here, inside me, just like I was there inside him. Like a regeneration, in a way. It’s all timey-wimey…”

“‘Wibbly-wobbly stuff’?” Sherlock finished, leveling an accusatory gaze at the Doctor. “I do wish you’d use the actual terminology.  Not _all_ humans are so simple they can’t understand.”

“I am using the actual terminology,” the Doctor insisted. “Trouble is there aren’t words in any language outside of Gallifreyan that the TARDIS can translate it to.”  Sherlock turned away, but felt the Doctor stabbing his finger into the back of his shoulder. “You went further for me than any other companion, any other being in the universe I’ve ever known. Do you know that? Faking your death to keep the Master from me, hiding away for more than a year.  That year…” He exhaled a ragged breath. Sherlock glanced back at him and found that even now, as a Time Lord again, the memories of it were still raw.  “It wasn’t all sunshine and roses, being John Watson.”

“Nor for me. It would have been worth it, if…” But he let the thought trail off. “It’s over now, though. Time to hang up the ear hat and get back to life among the stars, I suppose.”

“Actually…” the Doctor began, his tone conveying that he was delivering bad news, “we can’t – not really. Not with him to care for,” he jerked his head to indicate the back rooms.  “I mean, sure, every now and then for a lark, perhaps, but it’ll take some time figuring out how to adjust the chameleon arch to work properly for him. It’s just barely possible that I can really make him better, cure him of that bloody signal, maybe only restore certain memories… I don’t know.  But, it can’t be like before – new adventures every day, new sights and planets and stars and species…”

Crestfallen, Sherlock looked away again. “I see,” he managed to say, concentrating on keeping even, steady breaths. “The adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson have come to a close, then. I’ll remain here in Baker Street. You have other responsibilities.”

From behind him, the Doctor’s voice asked cautiously, “Is that what you want?”

“It doesn’t matter what I want,” he replied matter-of-factly. “It’s never mattered.”

“Don’t be daft – of course it matters,” the Doctor said. “It’s always mattered.”

Sherlock sat silently, staring at the floor, unable or unwilling to fight away the cloud of gloom that had settled over him. The pain of losing John, muddled with the joy of the Doctor’s return, and the confusion of trying to rationalize how neither could be lost or found when both were the same man – it was quite a lot to feel, especially for a man who seldom stopped to feel anything. And now adding the idea that they would have to say their actual, forever goodbyes…  How could mere words – how could _anything_ reach him through that?

But the Doctor went on, “I’ll tell you, if it were up to me, we’d just keep on with our lives as they’d been.” And Sherlock looked up. “Mycroft brings you back from the dead, as you said, and you resume your consulting work – I can keep blogging about it. I find I rather liked being an amateur writer, though now that I’m myself again I think I’d make some improvements. And in the downtime I’ll continue my work trying to cure the Master back there.”

Sherlock stared at the Doctor, weighing all the factors. “It wouldn’t be the same,” he said, still clinging to his melancholy.

“No, it wouldn’t. I’m not just _a_ doctor, I’m _the_ Doctor. The dynamic’s been irrevocably changed now,” the Doctor admitted, and pulled the watch from his pocket. “And I can never become him again, your doting deuterogamist; these personalities are one-time-only deals. But let’s be honest,” he said lightly, “I may know all about time travel and alternate realities and Daleks and Cybermen and Sycorax and weeping angels and a thousand million other things – but what do I really know about two-hundred-and-forty-three types of tobacco ash, hm? No, saving the world’s my prerogative. I’ll leave the everyday mysteries to you. Oh! And we’d never have to take the train or rent a car again.” He patted the TARDIS’s deck happily. “Instantaneous transport. And, you know, when there’s a lull in the caseload, there’s no reason we can’t zip off to another time. You could solve the most famous mysteries in human history! Jack the Ripper, the Zodiac killer, King Tutankhamen… Just imagine! – A little hieroglyph of you in your coat and scarf on the wall of the pyramids somewhere.”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes at the Doctor.  “You would really want to do that?”

The Doctor made a face like this was the most obvious thing in the world. “Of course,” he said. Sherlock scrutinized him, hope coloring his expression. “As I said, I did enjoy myself, as John. And human or not, this is still my retirement in a way. So – I go where you go. It’s as easy as that. And vice versa, as the situation demands.” He laid a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. Sherlock smiled.

The Doctor pursed his lips and looked down. “Just – promise me – Nn.” His voice momentarily failed him. “Promise me you won’t go walking off any more rooftops, right?”

This time when Sherlock laughed, it was genuine – untainted by uncertainty, skepticism, or sadness. “No promise could be more congenial to me.”

The Doctor cleared his throat, and said, “By the way, how _did_ you survive that fall?”

Sherlock smirked proudly. “Captain Jack. We made him a mask, put him in my clothes and off he went.”

The Doctor threw his head back and laughed. “Captain Jack!” he crowed. “Brilliant. Simply fantastic. Well.” He clapped Sherlock on the shoulder and leapt to his feet. “It’s settled then. What do you think, should we take her out for a celebratory spin? Just a short one, of course – somewhere local?”

“I can’t imagine doing anything else.”

The Doctor grinned a giddy grin and raced to the controls. As Sherlock rose to follow him, he felt as light as he could ever remember – it was as though the air particles in the TARDIS itself were glad for them. Everything was new and familiar. Timey-wimey and detectivey. And exactly as it should be.

 


End file.
